TN: Day before NEET 2020 exams,18-year-old girl commits suicide over fear of failure

A day ahead of the NEET 2020 exams, an 18-year-old girl committed suicide in Tamil Nadu. The deceased has been identified as Jyoti Durga.

The police have found a letter in Jyoti's book, in which she has written that her family was not to be blamed for the suicide and stated that she took her own life for fear of failing the examination and not being able to get a seat.

Police informed that Jyoti used to attend coaching classes to prepare for the NEET exams. She was under stress ever since the date of the entrance exam was announced. Reportedly, Jyoti had given the NEET exam earlier too, but she failed to pass the test. 

A family member said that on Saturday morning his parents knocked on the door to give him tea, and found the door closed. Upon breaking the door, her body was hanging from the ceiling fan.

The body has been sent for postmortem and the matter is being investigated.

This is the second death in a matter of less than a week in Tamil Nadu due to pressure that is associated with NEET exams.

On September 10,  a 19-year-old teenager from Tamil Nadu killed himself. His body was found floating in the well. He has been identified as Vignesh.

Vignesh was trying to improve his score in this year's NEET exam as earlier he could not join medical college despite having cleared the examinations.

Meanwhile, the state government and opposition parties have been objecting to conducting NEET and JEE Mains during the COVID-19 pandemic. Further, they opposed the exams as it went against social justice, the backward classes and the interests of rural students who could not pay for coaching classes.

”When the merciless Central government would stop the NEET. How many more lives should we lose ?”  DMK President said while expressing his grief over the NEET candidate's suicide.

Moreover, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) MLA Palanivel Thiaga Rajan on Saturday said that the standardised testing is "unfit" to decide the future of students and added that such tests have been "discredited" all across the globe.

"Standardised testing is already discredited all over the world. I have taken many such tests in my life like GRE and GMAT. All are bad tests. Any single test on any one day is unfit to decide a student's future. Such tests are inherently biased in a way," he said while speaking to ANI. 

Earlier, petitions filed by the students, and Opposition parties to postpone the exams have been dismissed by the Supreme Court. On Wednesday the Supreme Court dismissed a fresh batch of petitions seeking postponement of NEET (UG) exam 2020.